And over head glorious, but dreadful to see,
The wrecks of the tempest, like vapours of gold,

Are consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves behold,
The deep calm of blue heaven dilating above,

And, like passions made still by the presence of Love,
Beneath the clear surface reflecting it slide

Tremulous with soft influence; extending its tide
From the Andes to Atlas, round mountain and isle,

Round sea-birds and wrecks, paved with heaven's azure smile, The wide world of waters is vibrating.

Where

Is the ship? On the verge of the wave where it lay

One tiger is mingled in ghastly affray

With a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the battle

Stain the clear air with sunbows; the jar, and the rattle

Of solid bones crushed by the infinite stress

Of the snake's adamantine voluminousness;

And the bum of the hot blood that spouts and rains
Where the gripe of the tiger has wounded the veins,

Swollen with rage, strength, and effort; the whirl and the splash
As of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash
The thin winds and soft waves into thunder! the screams
And hissings crawl fast o'er the smooth ocean-streams,
Each sound like a centipede. Near this commotion,

A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean,
The fin-winged tomb of the victor. The other
Is winning his way from the fate of his brother,
To his own with the speed of despair. Lo! a boat
Advances; twelve rowers with the impulse of thought
Urge on the keen keel, the brine foams. At the stern
Three marksmen stand levelling. Hot bullets burn
In the breast of the tiger, which yet bears him on
To his refuge and ruin. One fragment alone,
'Tis dwindling and sinking, 'tis now almost gone,
Of the wreck of the vessel peers out of the sea.
With her left hand she grasps it impetuously,
With her right she sustains her fair infant. Death, Fear,
Love, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere,

Which trembles and burns with the fervour of dread
Around her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head,
Like a meteor of light o'er the waters! her child

Is yet smiling, and playing, and murmuring: so smiled
The false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brother
The child and the ocean still smile on each other,
Whilst

THE CLOUD.

I.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shades for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

II.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits,

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream.
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

III.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead.

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,

As still as a brooding dove.

IV.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

V.

I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

VI.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky:

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

II.

Higher still and higher,

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

III.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

IV.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad day-light

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

VI.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

VII.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

VIII.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

IX.

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

X.

Like a glow worm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

XI.

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

XII.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

XIII.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine :

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

XIV.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

XV.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

"What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?